Apple just banned vaping

Yes, Apple just banned vaping, but no, Apple is not making a vape!

As reported widely last week, Apple has told a British vaping website, Planet of the Vapes, that no more apps or app updates relating to vape will be allowed on the App Store.

Apple is known for its opacity when it comes to its business decisions, so don’t expect any explanation or justification for this.

Around the same time, news broke that Apple has patented a “vaporizer”. You can look at this patent elsewhere. This led many people to put two and two together and impugn a highly anti-competitive motive: Apple bans vape apps then moves in with its own iVape to corner the market. After all, is this the kind of thing Apple would do?

Well, maybe but of course, this isn’t what’s happening at all. Firstly, as Macobserver sleuth, Jeff Gamet, has shown that the application most likely relates to manufacturing processes. This is the type of thing the named inventor does (google patents is good for finding this out). So, it’s business as usual. Apple’s not releasing a vape device.

It’s anyone’s guess why Apple have chosen to ban vape from the app store. Most likely it’s down to the still-poisonous politics of vaping in the US, along with horrible offerings such as “Vape Master”. It wouldn’t have taken much from someone anti-vaping to nudge Apple, perhaps pointing out that vaping is now considered to be a tobacco product by the FDA (not very fair on Europeans, of course, for whom vaping is not considered a tobacco product by their regulators).

One thing’s for sure through this: Apple doesn’t care about the health of its consumers. For all the talk about connected health devices, the fact that they won’t support alternative nicotine products speaks volumes about the ethics of this deeply cynical company.